INDUSTRY

Mitsuya: Stateof-the-Art Plating
Katayama Osamu visits electroplating pioneers Mitsuya Co. and finds
the small and medium-sized enterprise still doing its utmost to meetall customer requests.

KATAYAMA OSAMU

more diverse, Mitsuya received one request after another, such as the plating ofmaterials that were inconceivable before, including plastic
and stainless steel, and theaddition of new functions.
One product even flew
into space aboard theNational Aeronautics andSpace Adm inistration( NA SA) ’s s p a c e s h u t t l e
Endeavor. The project commenced from a demonstration
test plan of dissolving semiconductor materials by conKusama Seiichiro, president of Mitsuya Co.
centrating the light of halogen
f I receive a job request, I will lamps in space, increasing their temperature to 1,200 degrees. Mitsuya renever decline it.”
Kusama Eiichi, founding ceived an offer to increase the reflecpresident of Mitsuya Co., made tive efficiency with gold plating tothis pronouncement his company’s increase the reflective efficiency ofmission statement. Kusama Seiichiro, the metal reflecting mirror as much as
the current president of Mitsuya, ex- possible for the concentration of light.
plains his father’s policy.
After trial and error, Mitsuya“When you are busy, you tend to succeeded in increasing the lightreceive new job requests. But when concentration reflecting rate, which
you are free and have spare time, you was usually considered to be about
do not receive as many job requests, 87%, to more than 99.8%.
which causes difficulties. As a result,Kusama looks back on that time,
the founding president told us to ac- saying, “The plating of a reflecting
cept requests without fail. There are mirror is a one-shot affair. If you
many cases where technology has damage it, it is a serious problem. It’s
flourished after people have made just like treating an art item. I rememwholehearted efforts to respond to ber that it was really hard work.”
The testing device that boarded thecustomer requests.”
Mitsuya found a means of surviv- Endeavor is currently on display at theal in never declining a customer re- Yoichi Space Museum in Yoichi,
quest, agreeing to tackle customer Hokkaido, where Mohri Mamoru, whoproblems and solving them. As a re- boarded the space shuttle, was born.
sult, Mitsuya’s technological prowess
Nickel Plating Expertisedeveloped.
In fact, with needs for plating, including electronic parts, becoming Mitsuya is headquartered in Gotanda,

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Tokyo, and there is a factory within theheadquarters. Mitsuya also has factories in Hachioji, Tokyo, in Yonezawa,
Yamagata Prefecture, and in Kofu,
Yamanashi Prefecture. Mitsuya prides
itself on its nickel plating for bonding.
For the large-scale integration(LSI) of semiconductors, LSI must beplaced on a frame and silicon andmetal lines must be connected by wiring. That is, wire bonding is necessary. The wire to be used for the wiring is required to be sufficiently
strong in conjugation, to be mass-produced and to be low in cost. Mitsuya
was asked to undertake a consultation
about good gold plating that meetsthese requirements.
After trial and error, Mitsuya
arrived at nickel plating, which is astrong field for the company.
Kusama says, “Nickel plating is an
old technology. But it was intended fordecoration and preventing corrosion,and it was not a high-level technology.”
Nickel plating for bonding developed by Mitsuya was outstandingly
good in terms of the strength of conjugation and cost. It was also applied toother products, and its usage expanded.
For exa mple, f u nd a ment a l ly
speaking, for plating sensor parts forengines, non-electrolytic nickel plating was generally utilized. However,special electric nickel plating developed by Mitsuya is now a mainstream technology.
Kusama says, “The special nickel
plating we developed has a global
share of 40% in the market of theplating of sensor parts for engines.”
The possibilities of plating havespread infinitely, but Kusuma is pragmatic about his company’s prospects,
saying, “For the same surface treatment
technology, good technologies are developed such as coating, as well as
plating. In addition, we have printing
technology. Completely new technology that challenges plating may emerge,such as the technology of making goldand silver particles scattered, printing
like ink, adding heat and wiring.
Unless you pay attention to a wide
range of fields, such as competition
among your competitors in the same

The Japan Journal JANUARY/FEBRUARY 201831

An “image furnace” is a gold-plated light-collecting reflector that concentrates
infrared light to melt solids at high temperatures. After trial and error, Mitsuya
succeeded in increasing the efficiency of the device’s light-concentration andreflectivity from 87% to close to 100%. Pioneered by Mitsuya Managing Director
Ozawa Shigeo, the coating technology has been used in devices for a wide
range of experiments both on Earth and in outer space.

an internal technology center as partof its efforts. However, there was justone engineer in the center.
Kusama says, “After I took on thepresidency, the company started focusing on technological development.
Currently, we have six employees belonging to the technological center.”He goes on to say that there are thirtyfour engineers who engage in quality
control and environmental operations
at the individual factories.
“From now on, we will be expected to work on the world of ‘nanotech,’where even the shapes of the crystals
on the surface of plating matter,”
Kusama says.
The technological center is expected to play a huge role in the survival of the tough competition beyond
the walls of the industry.
Expanding Overseas

The “image furnace” used by astronaut
Mohri Mamoru for metal alloy formation
experiments aboard the space shuttle
Endeavor in 1992. The device is on
display at the Yoichi Space Museum in
Yoichi, Hokkaido.

area of business, there is even the possibility of plating itself disappearing.”
That is, it will be part of the requirements for survival to continue tomeet customer requests and to continue to develop new technologies.
In the 1990s, Mitsuya established32

The Japan Journal

Mitsuya is now focusing on developing
overseas business, which it once abandoned. Although some leading platingcompanies have overseas bases, Mitsuya
did not have such overseas bases in thepast. This is because the electronicparts that Mitsuya mainly deals withare hard to present a long-term outlook
for because their life cycles are shortand involve numerous projects of manykinds and small amounts.
Kusama says, “It is said that you
need at least 400 to 500 million yen tobuild overseas factories. But you cannot expect returns that are compatible
with the investments. Although difficult domestic jobs remain, we findopportunities there and have taken on
challenges in the domestic market.”
But there was an “incident” five
years ago that triggered Mitsuya into
considering launching an overseas
business. Mitsuya’s communication
portal received an overseas email re-JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018questing special plating. It was written
in English. The employee in charge
forwarded the message to the president, which caused chaos. At that time,
the company had not expected to receive requests and orders from abroad.
Today, the globalization of theeconomy and information is extremely
rapid. In this situation, information
about companies with high-level technologies travels instantly around theworld, even though they are small andmedium-sized enterprises. In fact,
there are more and more cases where
Mitsuya receives questions in English
from overseas companies. In addition,
just like domestic cases, there are evencases where overseas companies ask
Mitsuya to make model products,
placing their trust in the Japanesecompany’s technologies.
Kusama says, “Because we cannot
afford to have problems with English,
we commenced English-language
education for our employees. Now,
our employees can easily respond toMitsuya has provided chemical blackening treatment (center) and other plating
for parts installed in many JAXA satellites over the years.

COURTESY OF MITSUYA CO.

COURTESY OF NATIONAL SPACE DEVELOPMENT AGENCY OF JAPAN (NASDA)

COURTESY OF MITSUYA CO.

INDUSTRY

Human Resources Development

One of the major issues for small andmedium-sized enterprises is how toacquire, maintain and nurture excellent human resources. Mitsuya goes toextensive efforts to acquire and nurture human resources.
Small and medium-sized enterprises have difficulty recruiting elite
students, unlike large corporations.
They are required to recruit honest,
enthusiastic human resources, build asystem in which they can work withmotivation to improve themselves andnurture them into first-rate employees.
Kusama says, “We began recruiting university graduates around 1970.
Currently, we recruit about two university graduates and high school graduates each year. We have high-level
plating technologies. But it is employees who used to be ordinary students
who support those technologies.”
In 2008, Mitsuya introduced a career matrix system for human resources development. For this matrix structure, career posts, such as chief, teamleader and section chief, are arrangedon the horizontal axis and career levels, such as entry-level, mid-level andhigh level, are arranged on the verticalaxis with a focus on career specialty.
This enables employees to envisage aspecific vision, such as “I am aiming
to become a mid-level section chief.”
Kusama says, “For the specifics ofeach matrix, we laid out and identified

all the details, suchas what experience,
knowledge and techniques are required.
It wa s s u c h h a r dwork that the preparations took about
three years. After thelaunch of the system,
we had an interview
with each employee
every year, discussing milestones such
The plating line at Mitsuya Co.’s factory in Yonezawa,
as what level they
Yamagata Prefecture
would aim for during
a specific period oftime and what level they would aim for and standardization of partial plating
the next year in order to achieve it. We and the processing methods of a unit
had them undergo the necessary edu- of one-hundredth.
cation for step-ups.”
But Mitsuya faces a difficult probThis is a very elaborate human lem: plating factories have such heavy
resources development system. In environmental loads that it is tough to2011, this career matrix system was take environmental measures, such as
awa rded t he Gra nd P r ize of t he the disposal of wastewater, in urban
Governor Prize of Tokyo Small and areas. When Mitsuya tried to integrate
Medium-Sized Enterprises’ Skill and the factory within the head office withthe Yonezawa factory in Yamagata andHuman Resources Development.
In addition, Mitsuya not only the Hachioji factory in Tokyo with themakes efforts to acquire excellent Kofu factory in Yamanashi, many cusyoung human resources but also cre- tomers disagreed and prevented it.
ates an environment where employees
Mitsuya has factories in urban
with excellent techniques and experi- areas with good access, which areence can work for many years.
good locations for customers to visit
Highly experienced craftsmen for consultations. Customers depend
who can tell what ingredient is miss- on Mitsuya that much.
ing by licking plating liquids have
Kusama says, “As long as there
supported Mitsuya, which has devoted are needs, we want to continue withitself to plating since its inauguration. the plating business coexisting with
Even today, when research on plating local regions by carrying out proper
technologies has been progressing, environmental measures in the area
their techniques are still said to be where we commenced business.”lumps of know-how and black boxes.
In an environment where the landExperienced craftsmen and engi- scape has changed dramatically fromneers with “tacit knowledge” are when Mitsuya started business, plating
sources of the competitiveness of craftsmen and engineers are still quietsmall and medium-sized enterprises. ly brushing up their skills separately
Accordingly, Mitsuya allows experi- from the bustle of urban life.
enced engineers to continue to work
for as long as they like, even after KATAYAMA Osamu is an economics journalist
retirement age if they want to.
and representative of K-Office. He has pubFor example, Ozawa Shigeo is 74 lished extensively, including Sumato kakumei deyears old this year, but he still contin- seicho suru Nihon keizai (Growing the Japanese
ues to work as a managing director. Economy with the Smart Revolution), andNaze Za Puremiamu Morutsu ha uretsuzukeru
He is a craftsman who was selected as noka? (Why does The Premium Malt’s beer sella “modern master” in recognition of so well?). Recent publications include Samsun
his contribution to the development kuraishisu (The Samsung Crisis).
The Japan Journal JANUARY/FEBRUARY 201833

COURTESY OF MITSUYA CO.

English emails from overseas clients.
We are gradually receiving moreorders from overseas, such as theUnited States and India, and we haveactually commenced business withoverseas companies.”
Mitsuya created an English version of its website and built a structure
for focusing on overseas business development. Kusama says, “We have
now commenced global business inJapan. Our dream is to develop ourglobal business to the core of ourbusiness. Because the whole of Japanis implementing measures for global
affairs, we also have to take proper
measures for global business.”